This is awesome! It runs swimmingly on mobile for me (iPhone 15 Pro Max). A few minor graphical glitches but nothing game-breaking. My only problem with Super Ball is that I’ve watched so many...
This is awesome!
It runs swimmingly on mobile for me (iPhone 15 Pro Max). A few minor graphical glitches but nothing game-breaking.
My only problem with Super Monkey Ball is that I’ve watched so many speedruns of it with people playing optimally that I’m completely unable to slow myself down to play it “correctly” and just want to go fast the whole time (which rarely works because I haven’t put hundreds of hours into grinding the levels like they have).
It’s admittedly doable in some levels, especially early on, but by the later ones the game is much more about patience and delicate inputs than barreling along at full speed.
Anyway, it’s super impressive that this is running in a browser. I’m of the day where web games had to load Flash or Shockwave or Java and were limited to pretty rudimentary, mostly 2D graphics. To see something like this run seamlessly, without external plugins, on my PHONE, definitely makes me feel like I’m living in the future.
I was never amazing at these games, but they were always a ton of fun to play. I remember playing a bunch of the party games in Super Monkeyball 2 with my brother and cousins when I was younger....
I was never amazing at these games, but they were always a ton of fun to play. I remember playing a bunch of the party games in Super Monkeyball 2 with my brother and cousins when I was younger.
This is so cool! I was going to say someone should add accelerometer control, then I realised there’s a dropdown for control type already. And then it just kept switching back to “touchscreen” for...
This is so cool! I was going to say someone should add accelerometer control, then I realised there’s a dropdown for control type already. And then it just kept switching back to “touchscreen” for me so I haven’t been able to try that setting out after all… But still, it runs, it’s a Dreamcast game, it’s in my browser - all around excellent.
Huh, I was gonna correct you that Super Monkey Ball was GameCube, not Dreamcast... But the original Monkey Ball arcade release was actually on NAOMI arcade hardware, which was Dreamcast...
Huh, I was gonna correct you that Super Monkey Ball was GameCube, not Dreamcast... But the original Monkey Ball arcade release was actually on NAOMI arcade hardware, which was Dreamcast architecture with some upgrades. SMB must've been a fairly significant test case to determine how easy DC-GC ports were, looking at the billion Sega rereleases over the next few years on the system.
Uhhh... yes, I definitely intended that as an extreme deep cut and didn't just have a minor existential crisis over the fact that I'm sure I remember having it on a Dreamcast demo disc back in the...
Uhhh... yes, I definitely intended that as an extreme deep cut and didn't just have a minor existential crisis over the fact that I'm sure I remember having it on a Dreamcast demo disc back in the day! (Seriously though TIL - I could've sworn it was a Dreamcast release, but at a guess I'm probably remembering seeing it hyped in ye olde dead tree gaming magazines of the era as an upcoming title while they were still trying to make fetch Dreamcast a thing, and then conflating that with eventually actually playing it on a GameCube at a friend's house or something after Sega shifted to software-only)
Using a Pixel 8. Latest chrome. Just tried it again, same issue. I can start the game and I see something... But mostly black. If I toggle full screen then I see a bit of the ball etc. toggling...
Using a Pixel 8. Latest chrome. Just tried it again, same issue.
I can start the game and I see something... But mostly black. If I toggle full screen then I see a bit of the ball etc. toggling back out of full screen almost looks normal but then I cannot move and the graphics are glitchy.
Also on a pixel 8. I get the frame around the game but the play area is entirely black. Amusingly, though, a bunch of random tapping got me points and eventually a goal.
Also on a pixel 8. I get the frame around the game but the play area is entirely black. Amusingly, though, a bunch of random tapping got me points and eventually a goal.
cc: @jmpavlec That's interesting that both of you are having trouble on a Pixel 8. Maybe put in a GitHub issue? Or try Edge, Firefox or another mobile browser just to troubleshoot?
That's interesting that both of you are having trouble on a Pixel 8. Maybe put in a GitHub issue? Or try Edge, Firefox or another mobile browser just to troubleshoot?
Totally worked in Firefox. For science I also tried Edge, and instead of the game frame with a black screen I had distributed clusters of pixel-like blocks in the background (I can send a...
Totally worked in Firefox. For science I also tried Edge, and instead of the game frame with a black screen I had distributed clusters of pixel-like blocks in the background (I can send a screenshot if you want). Touching the screen I seemed to be able to control (mph changed) but there was nothing moving.
I know I'm complaining too much, because this is amazing, but can it be called monkey ball, if there's no monkey in the ball?
This is awesome!
It runs swimmingly on mobile for me (iPhone 15 Pro Max). A few minor graphical glitches but nothing game-breaking.
My only problem with Super
MonkeyBall is that I’ve watched so many speedruns of it with people playing optimally that I’m completely unable to slow myself down to play it “correctly” and just want to go fast the whole time (which rarely works because I haven’t put hundreds of hours into grinding the levels like they have).It’s admittedly doable in some levels, especially early on, but by the later ones the game is much more about patience and delicate inputs than barreling along at full speed.
Anyway, it’s super impressive that this is running in a browser. I’m of the day where web games had to load Flash or Shockwave or Java and were limited to pretty rudimentary, mostly 2D graphics. To see something like this run seamlessly, without external plugins, on my PHONE, definitely makes me feel like I’m living in the future.
I was never amazing at these games, but they were always a ton of fun to play. I remember playing a bunch of the party games in Super Monkeyball 2 with my brother and cousins when I was younger.
Thanks for sharing this!
Code here:
https://github.com/sndrec/WebMonkeyBall
Announcement on Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/twilightpb.bsky.social/post/3mdbynphtbc2l
Well that was a blast from the past I wasn't prepared for. Awesome find!
This is so cool! I was going to say someone should add accelerometer control, then I realised there’s a dropdown for control type already. And then it just kept switching back to “touchscreen” for me so I haven’t been able to try that setting out after all… But still, it runs, it’s a Dreamcast game, it’s in my browser - all around excellent.
Huh, I was gonna correct you that Super Monkey Ball was GameCube, not Dreamcast... But the original Monkey Ball arcade release was actually on NAOMI arcade hardware, which was Dreamcast architecture with some upgrades. SMB must've been a fairly significant test case to determine how easy DC-GC ports were, looking at the billion Sega rereleases over the next few years on the system.
Uhhh... yes, I definitely intended that as an extreme deep cut and didn't just have a minor existential crisis over the fact that I'm sure I remember having it on a Dreamcast demo disc back in the day! (Seriously though TIL - I could've sworn it was a Dreamcast release, but at a guess I'm probably remembering seeing it hyped in ye olde dead tree gaming magazines of the era as an upcoming title while they were still trying to make
fetchDreamcast a thing, and then conflating that with eventually actually playing it on a GameCube at a friend's house or something after Sega shifted to software-only)Doesn't seem to work hardly at all on mobile unfortunately.
Edit: seems to be a Pixel 8 + Chrome issue. Works fine in Firefox
Works on Pixel 7a in Firefox
What are you using? It’s does alright on my Pixel 10 with Chrome.
Using a Pixel 8. Latest chrome. Just tried it again, same issue.
I can start the game and I see something... But mostly black. If I toggle full screen then I see a bit of the ball etc. toggling back out of full screen almost looks normal but then I cannot move and the graphics are glitchy.
Also on a pixel 8. I get the frame around the game but the play area is entirely black. Amusingly, though, a bunch of random tapping got me points and eventually a goal.
cc: @jmpavlec
That's interesting that both of you are having trouble on a Pixel 8. Maybe put in a GitHub issue? Or try Edge, Firefox or another mobile browser just to troubleshoot?
Works much better in Firefox. That's interesting. Thanks for following up.
Totally worked in Firefox. For science I also tried Edge, and instead of the game frame with a black screen I had distributed clusters of pixel-like blocks in the background (I can send a screenshot if you want). Touching the screen I seemed to be able to control (mph changed) but there was nothing moving.
Strange. Works great for me on a Samsung xcover7 with firefox.